Small Towns Are Hosting Hot Cocoa Crawls and It's the Best Idea Ever

It's no secret that small towns know how to do holidays. We're obsessed with all the ways communities come together at Christmastime, but this new idea has to be our favorite. And that's because it involves chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

Instead of bar crawls, during which people pop into different pubs for pints, some towns are hosting "hot cocoa crawls" and toasting to the holidays (without getting toasted).

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Hayward, Wisconsin, has not one but two hot chocolate crawls, scheduled for December 2 and 16, as part of their A "Lure" of Lights Christmas event. The Facebook event page explains that this is the seventh year in a row that townspeople have paid visits to participating businesses to sip to the season. At the end, everyone even votes on their favorite iteration of the festive hot beverage!

In Traverse City, Michigan, it's also a competition, slated for December 3. And then there's Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, where the city council is planning a hot cocoa crawl of their own, complete with carols, on December 2.

It's not too late to plan one in your town—or even just for family and friends. Map out a (probably marshmallow-lined) path to all your favorite cafes—or hop around from house to house and test out your own recipe. Because hot chocolate is nonalcoholic, the whole family can be involved in this kind of crawl (although you could certainly organize a spiked hot cocoa crawl as well). And there are so many different ways to make the wintery drink—from peppermint bark hot chocolate to red velvet hot chocolate to s'mores hot chocolate—so you'll have so much fun mixing it up.

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